Submit to all of his demands.

Amellia drew up not one, but four contracts for Xylyra to sign, in blood, with the Adventurer Guild's magical quill. One compelled her to answer honestly any questions put to her by mortals. One compelled her to follow Adventurer's Guild policies. One specifically forbade her from harming Shiroe or his allies. And one required her to attempt, in good faith, to renegotiate Tirra's Demon Pact to more favorable terms. The penalty for breach of contract was the same in each case: slow mana drain that would steadily escalate over time unless she made a good faith effort to correct all outstanding infractions.

With that out of the way, they could turn their attention to the more problematic form of magical contract.

The standard Warlock's summoning ritual was complicated, but not particularly intricate. Tirra stripped down and set up her summoning circle and candles, though she warned that while it would contain her patron Demon, it could not prevent him from attacking anyone who strayed too close to the edge. She drew two additional chalk outlines on the floor around the circle. "He can't reach any further than here. But I must stay at least this close in order to maintain the connection." The second circle was inside the first! It was a really terribly-negotiated Demon Pact.

Tirra lit the candles, gripped her ritual knife in a manner just so, and began to chant. The chalk circle on the floor began to glow with a malevolent red light.

"What fool dares to summon Gedeos, The Defiler?" A massive clawed hand reached out of that red light towards Tirra's face, but she only glared straight ahead in defiance.

"Ward!" Eva's barrier sparked violently as it sprang to life, barely slowing the demon's hand as he pushed through it.

"Don't worry about me! I've been handling this bastard for years! Work your magics!"

Amara knelt and began to invoke the Ritual of the Healing Sanctuary. As she whispered the ritual prayer, thin, silvery whisps of light began to flow out of her, finding the boundaries of the room and coalescing into a border. Everyone in the room began to slowly heal, whether they needed it or not.

"Foolish whelp," Gedeos growled, pushing his Warlock to the floor and pinning her arms to the floor above her head. "Did you really think you could betray me with mere mortal magic? Now repent. I thirst for your suffering."

Tirra dug the knife into a less essential part of her wrist, but as blood flowed from the wound, she channeled her mana not into her connection with Gedeos, but into Amara's healing Ritual. Gedeos roared at the act of defiance, and thew his body upon her, but Tirra only cackled maniacally as the Ward shattered.

"You think you can break me!? After all I've endured at your hands?" She wrapped her legs around him and pulled his angry member into her body before he could do it. "Take your last shots, you monster! Do your worst!" She began twirling and slashing the ceremonial dagger along her arm, its bizzarely curved edge carving bleeding patterns into her skin which faded as quickly as they formed.

Eva slowly paced around the outside edge of the room, trying to get into the mood. Xylyra had said every spare bit of sexual energy could help, so she'd stripped naked before the ritual. All eyes in the room were on the demon, though.

But then the demon's eyes turned to her.

"Who are you insects?" he growled. "What are you planning?"

She could literally feel heat from his gaze as his eyes raked lewdly across her form. With a moan of wanton arousal, she dropped to her knees and spread her legs.

Shiroe held Niki in his arms, facing the demon. He slowly stroked her sides with feathers, making her anticipate a tickle attack that they both knew would never come. She reached down between her legs, and began to finger herself.

"Slowly," he murmured into her ear. "Find the edge, and then gently ride it. Savor the anticipation. Wallow in the frustration. You're not to finish until I give the order."

"Gods," she whispered. "Don't talk like that. You nearly had me there..."

Xylyra basked in their slowly mounting arousal as she manipulated the mana streaming from demon to Warlock and back again. The party's combined lust was exquisite. It was everything she could have imagined, and so much more. She sipped gently, focusing carefully on the task at hand, as The Defiler's Pact melted away one thread at a time. And she had so much extra power to work with!

Renegotiate? Oh, no. She could do far better than that! She laughed as she felt one of four geasa begin to forcibly extract a warning trickle of mana from her. It was so tiny!

Xylyra danced and weaved, crafting an elegant and generous pact, inspired by the exhaustive and methodically balanced terms of the contracts she'd just signed. And still, she had power left over! Enough power that any demon would attempt a...

The succubus spread her own legs in a sassy stance, and in a husky voice said "I'm ready."

Tirra stopped pumping her her mana into Amara's ritual, and switched to feeding it into Xylyra's ritual.

Xylyra simply buffered the power into herself until she felt like she would burst. Her eyes began to glow as she waited for the ideal moment to strike...

There. When Gedeos The Defiler released his seed into his former thrall.

"Midnight Climax," her voice commanded. And the bodies of every mortal in the room obeyed.

"Midnight Overdrive Special: Midnight Gluttony!"

The demon began to scream as streams of dark red energy ripped from his body and began to flow into Xylyra's. His massive body seemed to shrink and shrivel, becoming smaller as his claws and horns began to crumble away.

Amara maintained the healing ritual for as long as she could, riding the orgasmic waves to new heights. Not just her clit, but her entire body throbbed with passion as the surprisingly innocent yet deeply complex wave of emotion overtook her. Finally, her mana ran out. Her casting stopped. She pressed her hand between her legs and thrashed to keep the feeling going for as long as she could possibly stand it.

Tirra pushed the demon down and got on top of him, cackling and humping him as his body grew smaller and smaller. "You like that? You like that?" Finally, she stopped cutting herself, and licking the blood from the knife, shouted "I banish thee!"

And what was left of Gedeos The Defiler did, indeed vanish. But the summoning circle continued to glow a vivid red. No... not red. It slowly began to turn pink. Something was wrong. This wasn't part of the deal. Her link to Gedeos had faded completely to nothing at some point during her hate-fuck. And she hadn't noticed until now the gentler, subtler link that had replaced it.

And as they all watched, incredulous, Xylyra sashayed across the room and knelt within the circle, the magic snapping her forcefully into place as she settled. Then she dramatically bowed her head to the ground in front of Tirra, spreading her arms to either side and resting her palms face-up.

"Let us know no fear, for we shall encourage each other"
"Let us know no weakness, for we shall empower each other"
"Let us know no foolishness, for we shall impart wisdom to each other"
"And let us know no loneliness, for we shall accompany each other"
"For eternity and a day, lest one of us wish this Pact dissolved"
"Do you accept these terms, my adorable little Warlock?"

Shiroe frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but Tirra was already enthusiastically shouting "YES!!"

"How would you have me seal this Pact?" she asked, her eyes dark pools of mystery and temptation as she stared into the eyes of her new thrall.

"Now, remember, Tirra, her abilities--"

"Clean up what the Defiler did to me!"

The Succubus smiled sweetly, slowly leaning over towards her Warlock. Then, a hint of mischief flickered behind her eyes. Her face slowly twisted into a wicked grin as she let her Warlock contemplate what she had just gotten herself into.

"Is it safe to look yet?" Amellia asked. But then Tirra's whimpering in anticipation made her realize that "cleaning" hadn't just meant cleaning.

"Not yet," Shiroe replied.

Some the cutest, most flustered noises bubbled out of the Warlock's mouth as the Succubus milked her nervous excitement for all it was worth. Then she cheerfully extended her tongue. She wasted a little magic to make it extra-long, which earned her a surprised yelp from the prone Warlock. Finally, when it seemed like the poor thing just couldn't take it anymore, Xylyra plunged her tongue into her and began eagerly licking her clean of demon seed.

"I do want to thank you, Miss Le Cour, for listening in, even though you opted not to help with the ritual."

"Oh... I think I accidentally helped a little, there, at the end."

"Why, Miss Le Cour... was that a quip?"

Amellia failed to suppress a grin. "Perhaps."

Shiroe pushed his glasses up his nose.

"I may just need to start calling you Amellia."

Her unsanctioned grin widened. "In any case, Demon Pacts are Tirra's specialty. But to my ear, the Pact that she chose struck me as rather open-ended, reciprocal, and revocable. In fact, it sounded more like marriage vows than a contract, per sey."

"Perhaps it's because she's used to people under-estimating her. " he mused. "As long as she keeps her target happy, she thinks she can basically do whatever she wants." He shrugged. "I've heard of worse marriages. Tell me, are all four Guild contracts still in effect?"

She checked her paperwork. "Yes. However..." She pointed to a line of text that was glowing red. "She appears to currently be in breach of Section 1 of Document Xylyra-04. Reason: failure to provide the agreed-upon service."

Shiroe folded his hands pensively and considered the implications. Right now, she was no doubt flying high from all the mana she'd absorbed. But in time, she would start to feel the drain. She would have **** but to actually negotiate better terms with Gedeos somehow.

"Keep it in effect, for now. We'll consider giving her the option to renegotiate it or dissolve it later, if she behaves herself."

Xylyra lifted her head from Tirra's crotch. "I'll behave myself," she said innocently.

"We'll see. First, you'll need to pay out your Quest rewards."

"Quest rewards?"

"For vanquishing the Chicktapusapine? Or were you planning to disregard Guild rules by defaulting on the terms of the Quest that you posted?"

"Point of order," Amellia said, "as far as I can tell, there never was a Chicktapusapine in the first place. So wouldn't that make the Quest posting a violation of Guild rules, to begin with?"

And just like that, Xylyra felt a second geas begin to draw upon her glorious newly-overcharged mana reserves.

"I have an idea," Shiroe said. "There may be yet a way to satisfy the terms of the Quest... technically."

Shiroe explained his plan, and they workshopped the implementation details. Eventually, they settled for soaking some of the torn shreds of the bedsheet in water and tying them in Xylyra's hair, and dripping hot wax on her arms and then sticking feathers and dried pine needles to it.

"You do realize I could simply polymorph myself or cast an illusion, right?" she asked.

"Trust me," Shiroe said. "It needs to look cheap and fake. That way, it'll still hold up, later, when you're no longer wearing it."

Xylyra shrugged, and allowed them to decorate her.

"So, what do I owe you, five silver each? That comes to about three and a half gold, right? Or do you have more party members waiting in the wings outside?"

"I brought some backup. Come on out, I'll introduce you to them."

"I wonder which adventurers you decided to bring?" the newly-festooned succubus mused. "I wonder which adventurers you were able to get. Noble heroes at the tops of their fields? Whatever rakish n'er-do-wells were willing to work with you in order to get closer to your lady friends? Or did you simply fill out your ranks with nothing but hopeless hotties?"

She emerged to see a ring of various adventurers surrounding the hill.

"Actually, since there were so many people interested in partying up for a trial run, I decided to just bring all of them. First ones to break formation are out of the running."

Her jaw dropped as she looked around. Male, female, hopeless, competent, high level, low level... Adventurers of all stripes. If she had tried to double-cross Shiroe...

"Ladies and gentlemen! May I present, the legendary Chicktapusapine!" There was nothing Xylyra could do but strike a pose as those assembled laughed and cheered.

What had she gotten herself into?